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The Swiftie and The Scholar

Angela McDow | Dr. Jerry Coats
The Swiftie and The Scholar
Latest episode

43 episodes

  • The Swiftie and The Scholar

    The Inquisitive Human Nature in How Did It End?

    21/05/2026 | 52 mins.
    FIXED AUDIO!
    Call all your friends and cousins, we’re finally covering How Did It End? from The Tortured Poets Department. Uncle Jerry finds tons of beautiful poetics and dark humor in this one, and Angela discusses its connections to both The Prophecy and But Daddy I Love Him. If you want to vote for a specific song for June, join us on Patreon to play along!

    Works Cited:
    General Reference Pronoun
    Autofiction as a Doorway Into Truth
    Conceit – Literary term
    Come One, Come All – All Time Low
    Slant Rhyme
    "Now give three cheers" – HMS Pinafore
    The Telephone Hour – Bye Bye Birdie
    The Raven – Edgar Allan Poe
    Annabel Lee – Edgar Allan Poe
    To -- -- --. Ulalume: A Ballad – Edgar Allan Poe
    Hyperion – John Keats
    Ode to a Nightingale – John Keats
    A Rose for Emily – William Faulkner
    The Swiftie and The Scholar Grading Matrix

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  • The Swiftie and The Scholar

    The Christian Tendrils of But Daddy I Love Him

    14/05/2026 | 1h 21 mins.
    Buckle up for a long one! We are flooring it through the fences today with But Daddy I Love Him from Taylor Swift’s 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department. We discuss common movie tropes, conservative small towns, and the lyrics Angela wants to have tattooed from this song.

    Works Cited:
    Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell – Susanna Clarke – Aff Link
    East of Eden – John Steinbeck – Aff Link
    Rebel With a Cause (1955)
    The Notebook (2004)
    Inside Daisy Clover (1965)
    How The West Was Won (1962)
    Anaphora
    Epiphora (or epistrophe)
    the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls – e.e. cummings
    Footloose (1984)
    The Swiftie and The Scholar Grading Matrix

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    Threads
    ⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠
    Uncle Jerry’s Instagram
  • The Swiftie and The Scholar

    The Sentimentalism of Marjorie

    07/05/2026 | 1h 1 mins.
    In this episode, we are tackling marjorie, a track from Taylor Swift’s evermore album from 2020. Uncle Jerry teaches us about sentimentalism in literature, and Angela blows his mind by telling him the real life Marjorie’s backstory. 

    Works Cited:
    Aphorism
    David Hume
    Immanuel Kant
    Sentimentalism
    Sentimental Novels in Early American Fiction
    The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie – Aff Link
    Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded – Samuel Richardson – Aff Link
    Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen – Aff Link
    A Treatise of Human Nature Paperback – David Hume – Aff Link
    The Swiftie and The Scholar Grading Matrix

    Follow Us:
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    Threads
    ⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠
    Uncle Jerry’s Instagram
  • The Swiftie and The Scholar

    Dr. Uncle Jerry University: Poetry 101

    30/04/2026 | 1h 16 mins.
    We’re doing something a bit different today! Some conversations have popped up in various comment sections about why Uncle Jerry prefers specific types of poetry, and which lenses we use to dissect those poems, whether we’re talking about Charles Dickens, Emily Dickenson, or Taylor Swift. So Uncle Jerry put together a lecture explaining how and why he views certain poetic styles the way he does, and explains the different criticism styles and theories we use to understand a poem’s meaning and impact.

    Hope you enjoy! Please leave any questions in the comments that he can answer either here or in a later episode. 

    Works Cited:
    Marxist Literary Criticism
    Post-Colonial Criticism
    Reader-response theory
    Key Theories of Wolfgang Iser
    Is There a Text in This Class? – Stanley Fish – Aff Link
    Psychological Criticism
    Feminist Theory
    New Criticism
    Felicia Dorothea Hemans
    On the Intentional Fallacy
    Hyperion – John Keats
    Affective Fallacy
    Queer Theory
    Deconstruction
    Semiotics
    Critical Race Theory
    New Historicism
    Stephen Greenblatt and New Historicism
    Sketches by Boz – Charles Dickens – Aff Link
    Sonnets
    Shakespeare's Sonnets & Poems – William Shakespeare – Aff Link
    Limerick
    Haiku
    Ballad Meter (or Common Measure)
    Villanelle
    Concrete Poetry
    Life Studies – Robert Lowell – Aff Link 
    The Collected Poems – Sylvia Plath – Aff Link
    My Papa’s Waltz – Theodore Roethke
    The Real Slim Shady – Eminem
    Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture Paperback – Dana Gioia – Aff Link
    A Bit Much – Lyndsay Rush – Aff Link
    Lyndsay Rush – Instagram
    Amanda Gorman
    The Swiftie and The Scholar Grading Matrix

    Follow Us:
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    ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠
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    Threads
    ⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠
    Uncle Jerry’s Instagram
  • The Swiftie and The Scholar

    Fate vs. Free Will in The Prophecy

    23/04/2026 | 1h 21 mins.
    We are getting witchy today as we dive deep into The Prophecy from Taylor Swift’s 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department. Uncle Jerry teaches us about some specific references to tarot and the occult in literature, and how that shaped a few of his interests. Angela tells the story of a tarot reading that Taylor received from a friend, and how she thinks it inspired this song.
      
    Works Cited:
    The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats – William Butler Yeats – Aff Link
    Rosicrucian Fellowship
    The Secrets of the Belline Oracle – Sylvie Steinbach – Aff Link
    Crowley Thoth Tarot Deck
    Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards – The Morgan Library
    Visconti Sforza Tarot Cards Cards – Stuart R. Kaplan – Aff Link
    Miniature Rider-Waite® Tarot – Pamela C. Smith – Aff Link
    Rider Waite Gold Foil Tarot Deck – Aff Link
    The Original Rider Waite: The Pictorial Key To The Tarot: An Illustrated Guide – A.E. Waite – Aff Link
    Tarot Revelations – Joseph Campbell, Richard Roberts – Aff Link 
    A to z Horoscope Maker and Delineator – Llewellyn George – Aff Link
    A Treatise on the Astrolabe – Geoffrey Chaucer – Aff Link
    Antithesis – Rhetorical Device
    Gimpel the Fool: And Other Stories – Isaac Bashevis Singer – Aff Link
    The Miller’s Tale – Geoffrey Chaucer
    Morphology of the Folktale – V. Propp – Aff Link
    Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index
    Taylor Swift’s Tarot Card Revelation Proves None of Travis Kelce Romance Was Accidental
    Inclusio
    The Swiftie and The Scholar Grading Matrix

    Follow Us:
    Patreon
    ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠
    ⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠
    ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠
    Threads
    ⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠
    Uncle Jerry’s Instagram
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About The Swiftie and The Scholar
A weekly podcast exploring the lyrics, lore, and literary legacy of Taylor Swift. Hosted by Angela McDow, the Swiftie, and Dr. Jerry Coats, the Scholar, we read between the lines AND the liner notes. Join us each week for lyrical deep dive through Taylor Swift's eras.
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